So, the Senate barbershop is a thing, and surprise: It runs at a deficit

posted at 6:31 pm on March 17, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

Well, isn’t this just peachy. This is actually the first time I’ve heard anything about it, but apparently, the public servants of the United States Senate have been enjoying taxpayer-subsidized trims and shaves on Capitol Hill since before the Civil War — an oh-so-beloved tradition that, in merely the past fifteen years, has cost taxpayers over five million dollars. Senate Hair Care Services is technically open to the public, for those who know/care about it, but last year alone the salon needed a $300,000 bailout from the Senate coffers to cover their jacked-up costs.

The convenient little Senatorial perk has steadily resisted several sporadic efforts to reform the outfit over the years, but sequestration is once again focusing some attention on the endeavor, the Weekly Standard reports:

The barbershop of the U.S. Senate has run deficits of approximately $350,000 a year for each of the last 15 years. So Senate sergeant at arms Terry Gainer has decided to try out a new model, one that has looked rather unfashionable during the Obama era: privatization. …

Gainer has tried to trim Senate Hair Care Services for the past few years. Now the political climate troubling everyone else on Capitol Hill is allowing him to move faster than he anticipated towards privatizing it completely. …

The sequestration’s required spending cuts provide convenient cover. Gainer is offering early retirement to all eligible employees, hoping to replace them with independent contractors. Four employees have already accepted the offer, and they plan to retire in the next 60 days. Gainer likens these “buyouts” to those that corporations often make. He has no timeline for complete privatization, but is determined to see it through.

The other chamber managed to revamp their own deficit-running, government-subsidized barbershop in 1995, when House Republicans passed a resolution as a part of Speaker Gingrich’s privatization task force — is it really so very outrageous that the Senate should have to do the same?

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I’d be very interested to learn exactly what sort of services the senators get there. Is it simply a shave, a trim, shampoo, and a blow dry? Or do these services include styling, cuts, color, permanents, straitening treatments, extensions, weaves, manicures, pedicures, cosmetics, facials, etc?

The fact that four employees have thus far accepted early retirement, meaning that there are others who have not, suggests to me that the services offered rivaled a full service salon.

If the senators wish to have on site beauty and barber services, they should pay for them out of their own pocket, not the taxpayers pocket.

As to the senators requiring a shave…we have a grand little invention these days… its called an electric razor.

And surely the six-figure salaries we pay them, on top of all the money they make doing insider trading, should be enough to allow these already-wealthy individuals to pay for their own damn haircuts in a privately-run salon.

The shop is just another symptom of the rot that permeates our government.

This is the icing on the cake, I demand a full audit of both houses of congress and the white house budgets. If the senate haircut budget runs a $350,000 annual deficit just how bad are the rest of them.

I intentionally did not capitalize their office titles, they no longer merit the respect that the offices once held.

I will write both of my senators and house members to demand this, I suggest you all do the same. I can’t wait to get their replies.

I really want to pay my hairdresser on my insurance, with a $20 copay.

These people (salons) are the epitome of small business, they are regulated to death, no one cares about their huge water bills, electric bills, safety regulations, business taxes and the cost of supplies that goes up and up. I have now found myself with a very addictive habit, and my entire Psyche is not able to do without my monthly appointments. I need my salon more than teenagers need birth control. More than prisoners need the self esteem of a full sex change operation (Massachusetts, anyway.) I self actualize as a much younger woman?

We were thinking that the people with the sex change are getting a lot of cosmetic work done on our health insurance…why not us too? No woman should go bankrupt because she can’t afford all her salon needs, and at a certain age…well some cosmetic work for those who want it.

Women want hair “medicine.” If they promise me this, I will vote democrat.

is it really so very outrageous that the Senate should have to do the same?

Yes it is. Imagine a Senator having to pay market price for their haircuts. This is a slippery slope. The next thing the peons will be demanding is that the Senate actually passes a budget! We can’t have that can we?

Keep in mind this is the institution that has a tennis court of the roof of one of the Senate office buildings because John Breaux liked to play tennis (guess who got to pay for that one).

I’m a bit confused. Are the Senators paying for their haircuts, but not paying enough? What do they pay? $5, $10, $20? $20 is an outrageous price for a haircut. They make it sound as if the Senators don’t pay anything, but it isn’t clear. If that’s the case, then it isn’t a bailout, it’s a free government service. That’s just what we pay to have our Senators look good when hogging the camera. :p

If it’s free to the Senators, then make ‘em pay! If they are paying something above $15 for a haircut (and, apparently that isn’t enough) then maybe you need to look at who’s skimming the till, because that seems to pay the bills for all the Supercuts and such in my neighborhood. If they’re paying something less than $15 per hack, then maybe you need to up the price. Of course, if you privatized it all those things would rapidly become self-evident or it would go under.

Yes, let’s see ALL the perks these folks get! I can see a legislators-and-staff-only barbershop for convenience, but they dang well ought to be keeping the place open with their own money, not ours. Same thing with cafeterias and any other services that you and I would have to fund out of our own paychecks.

Crimes against the People. The Senate hair care is for the convenience of the Members . OK with that! They pay for the service out of their own pocket. Ok with that! They are most all multi Millionaires. They can afford the hair care costs. Ok wit that! They have been subsidizing their personal hair care with public tax payer money. That is a crime. That is malfeasance of office. That is a punishable offense. Ask Former member of Congress Dan Rostenkowski and his stamp plan. All members that voted to subsidize the “Barber Shop” for their use with tax payer money should be made to pay and go to jail. File this one with check kiting,